MUMBERTHRAX FLATHEAD THE
INSIGNIFICANT
Mumberthrax Flathead the Insignificant, the sixth king of the Flathead
Dynasty, ruled the kingdom from Egreth Castle during the years 755~770
GUE. Historians note that Mumberthrax's reign was significant for
exactly thirteen, and only thirteen, reasons. The first reason was his
royal decree that made Double Fanucci the National Sport of Quendor. As
for the other reasons, Boswell Barwell writes that "Mumberthrax's place
in history was secured by the one thing at which Flatheads tended to
excel: procreation." Mumberthrax was the father of the famed Twelve
Flatheads.
BEFORE THE REIGN OF MUMBERTHRAX
Mumberthrax was perhaps the most extreme example of being affected by
Duncanthrax’s propaganda that he was the most awesome king of
all time, spending his entire life utterly convinced of his
own unimportance,
completely unwilling to perform any deed that would cause him to be
remembered by history. Already, Mumberthrax had throughout his
childhood been incessantly taunted and tormented by his uncle
Timberthrax, and even the his own enigmatic father, Phloid. Perhaps embittered by the long wait for the throne,
both Timberthrax and Phloid were not particularly nice individuals, and
were constantly taking pains to make Mumberthrax clearly aware of how
unbelievably insignificant he was in the grander scheme of things.
After years of this torment, Mumberthrax becoming ingrained with one of
the greatest inferiority complexes history has ever, and logically came
to extend his own feeling of unimportance to include that of his dozen
children. Convinced of his own irrelevance, Mumberthrax could see
little reason to think that his son Dimwit would turn out much better.
Boswell Barwell, the official biographer of the Flatheads writes that
“Mumberthrax's place in history was secured by the one thing at which
Flatheads tended to excel: procreation.” In 723 GUE, Dimwit Flathead,
the great-great-great-great grandson of King Duncanthranx, who would be
alternately described as “a colorful figure” and “the most wretched
ruler Quendor has ever seen,” was born to Prince Mumberthrax,
great-great-grandson of Duncanthrax. Dimwit would be followed by eleven
more eclectically distinguished siblings: a captain of industry, a
military hero, a musical genius, a dauntless banker and financer, an
inventor extraordinaire, an artist and scientist, a chronic widow, a
poet, a seaman and explorer, a royal architect, and a legendary
athlete. Each of these twelve amazing children would transform the
kingdom. As these magnificent siblings grew in notoriety, as their vast
achievements became legendary, they would become known as The Twelve
Flatheads, and play a role in the most romanticized era of Zork’s
history, the reign of Lord Dimwit Flathead.
John D. Flathead was the second child born to Mumberthrax in 725 GUE.
T.J. “Stonewall” Flathead was the third child born to Mumberthrax in
726 GUE.
Johann Sebastian Flathead was the fourth child born to Mumberthrax in
728 GUE.
J. Pierpont Flathead was the fifth child born to Mumberthrax in 730
GUE, followed later that year by his sixth, Thomas Alva Flathead.
Leonardo Flathead was the seventh child born to Mumberthrax in 731 GUE.
Lucrezia Flathead, the only sister to eleven aggressive brothers, was the eighth child born to Mumberthrax in 735 GUE.
Ralph Waldo Flathead, known as the Poet of the Empire, was the ninth
child born to Mumberthrax in 737 GUE.
John
Paul Flathead was the tenth child born to Mumberthrax in 738 GUE. From
an early age, John Paul suffered from an inferiority complex
derived from being the second “John” among the Flathead
children. In
his autobiography, Mumberthrax explains that when he named John Paul he
“simply forgot about John D.” This complex made John Paul determined
to become a world-famous seafaring adventurer.
Frank Lloyd Flathead was the eleventh child born to Mumberthrax in 741
GUE.
Often called the flattest of the Flatheads, Babe, the youngest of the
Twelve Flatheads, was born to Mumberthrax with an aptitude for sport.
THE REIGN OF MUMBERTHRAX
Since the birth of his first-born son, Mumberthrax had already been
labeled the Not Terribly Important, and would be an old man by the time
he claimed the crown. Becoming the sixth king of the Flathead Dynasty,
Mumberthrax Flathead, also known as Mumberthrax the Insignificant,
succeeded Phloid Flathead in
755 and ruled the kingdom from Egreth Castle until
770. With Dimwit already long since born and on his way to the throne
of Quendor, what Mumberthrax did during his reign was so irrelevant
that to even bother with trying to write a history of the next twenty
years seems like a waste of effort. It has often been said that poor
Mumberthrax spent fifteen years on the throne of Quendor and only
managed to accomplish thirteen important things. What is usually lost
in the chronological shuffle is the fact that of those thirteen
important things, the first twelve had already long since been taken
care of by the time Mumberthrax came to the throne. Scholars and fans
of the Flathead family have taken great pains to avoid this sticky fact
and point to the often forgotten.
It was during the reign of Mumberthrax when the famous Syovar met the beautiful and singularly
talented Lorena of Mauldwood, a relative by marriage of a distant wing
of the ruling family. Stricken with love for the first time in his
young life, Syovar spent months sighing over the young countess from a
distance before Mumberthrax himself caught wind of his young
enchanter-knight's romantic obsession. The meddling monarch's order
that the two be wed by the end of the week may be counted among the
‘169 Not Quite as Important Things’ that marked the fifteen years of
Mumberthrax's reign.
DOUBLE FANUCCI DECLARED A NATIONAL SPORT (757-07-03 GUE)
As every student of history knows, the Twelve Flatheads were the
greater part of the Thirteen Significant Accomplishments of King
Mumberthrax the Insignificant. Historians note that Mumberthrax's reign
was significant for exactly thirteen, and only thirteen, reasons. The
thirteenth accomplishment was a royal decree that made Double Fanucci
the National Sport of Quendor after almost a hundred years of growing
popularity. Invented by Zilbo III, the last king of the
Entharion Dynasty, Double Fanucci had been an annual event since 691
GUE, and Mumberthrax’s Proclamation of 757 simply gave the sport
official royal approval.
NEW WING FOR CASTLE EGRETH (758~760 GUE)
Frank Lloyd Flathead got his big break at the tender age of 17, when
his father, King Mumberthrax, commissioned him to design a new wing for
Castle Egreth. The resulting wing was breathtakingly impressive. As
Frank Lloyd himself wrote, “the conjunction of space and time seems to
interface in a pre-subjected instantiation of the underrepresented
whole.” Frank Lloyd became, overnight, the hottest architect in the
Kingdom. (The fact that the new wing of Egreth collapsed two years
later, killing over 4,000 royal guests, was credited to a
miscalculation on the stonemason’s part. He was summarily executed.)
When Mumberthrax felt death's icy hand in 770 GUE, his son, Dimwit Flathead, assumed the Quendoran throne.